Battleangel

For years now, progressive elements and copyfighters have been trying to get the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization to start thinking about ways of promoting creativity and development instead of just IP — to get the organization to see that its raison d’etre is a better world, and that stronger IP laws is just one way of accomplishing that — and that IP only works sometimes.

We’ve been foiled at every turn by the maximalists, the movies studios and the trademark offices, the patent-cops and the recording industry lobbyists and the IP lawyers’ associations.

Which is why this is such good news: at the general session of the WIPO in Geneva this weekend, the Assembly as adoped a decision to put development and the promotion of creativity front-and-center in its goals. That means that from now on, WIPO isn’t an organization that blindly supports more IP no matter what, but rather one that seeeks to improve the world by whatever tool is best suited to the job.